


V&%: 






Jit 

mm 



1 



■ 



■'.';•••.'.••' >-.'■': ■ '•:'':■';.:. 






■ 

bWmmm 









liK; 




Class 



s£iii4 



BookJ_Si> 



R E M A It K S 



HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL. OF' ILLINOIS, 

On seizure of Arsenals at Harpefs Ferry, Va., and Liberty, Mo., and 
i in ation of the Republican Party and its Creed, in respt . 

to Senators Chesnut, Yulee, Saulsbury, Clay, and Pugh. 



Delivered in the United States Senate, Decembex* 6, 7, and S, 1859. 



December 6, 1859. 
•>'The Senate having under consideration the 
allowing resolution, offered by Mr. Mason, of 

.ia : 

it a committee be appoln* : 

Sion and seizure- of the ar- 
States at Harper's Ferry, 
u Vn. ■ d of armed men, and re] 

uthori- 
Qnited SI it 

>ps sent 

property ; wh . . asion 

• o ia- 

organi- 

■■>. by 

vb.a w 
iunt in 
.it: v. :, 

ition may, ii 

I 

v -rty ; and I 

Mr. TRUMBULL said: 

Mr. E'resi lent, when that resolution was offer- 
■d yesterday, 1 stated- that I would move an 
imi-ndiaent to it when it should come up for 
:onsideration ; but, before proceeding to 
he an . I will state that the resolo 

is offered by the Senator from Virginia, will re- 
:eive niy support. If any other persons than the 
ity-two whose names are known to the coun- 
ry are implicated in, or in any way accessory to, 
he seizor • of Harper's Ferry, and the murder of 
.he citizens of Virginia, let us ascertain who 
' ey b and let them be held responsible for 

I hoix this investigation will be thorough and 
complete. I believe it will do good by disabu- 
sing the public mind, in that portion of the Union 
tvhich feels most sensitively upon this sub- 
.ect, of the idea that the outbreak at Harper's 
Ferry received any countenance or support from 
lonsidetable number of persons in any por- 
bf this Union. No man who is not prepared 
ibvert the Constitution, destroy the Govern- 
ment, and resolve society into its original ele- 
ments, can justify such an act. No matter what 
3vils, eithei real or imaginary, may exist in the 
body politic, if each individual, or every set of 



twenty individuals, out of more than twenty mil- 
lions of people, is to be permitted, in his own 
way, and in defiance of the laws of the land, to 
undertake to correct those evils, there is not a 
aovernment upon the face of the earth that could 
last a day. And it seems to me, sir, that those 
persons who reason only from abstract princi- 
ples, and believe themselves justifiable on all 
occasions, and in every form, in combating evil 
wherever it exists, forget that the right which 
they claim for themselves exists equally in every 
other person. All Governments, the best which 
have been devised, encroach necessarily more cr 
less on the individual rights of man, and to that 
extent may be regarded as- evds. Shall wo 
therefore destroy government, and in place of 
regulated and constitutional liberty inaugurate 
a state of anarchy, in which every man shall be 
permitted to follow the instincts of his own pas- 
sions Or prejudices, and where there will be no 
protection to the physically weak against the 
encroachments of the strong? Till we are pre- 
pared to inaugurate such a state as this, no man 
tify the deeds done at Harper's Ferry. 

In regard to the misguided mau who led the 
insurgents on that occasion, I have no remarks 
to make. He has already expiated upon the gal- 
lows the crime which he committed against the 
laws of his country ; and to answer for his errors 
or his virtues, whatever they may have been. I e 
has gone fearlessly and willingly before 
Judge w ho cannot err ; there let us leave him. 

The amendment which I propose to offer to 
the resolution which is pending, and in which, 
I trust, I may have the support of every Senator, 
provides for the investigation of a like transac- 
tion which occurred in the State of Missouri. I 
will briefly state what that transaction was. as 
it may not be fresh in the recollection of Sena- 
tors. 

The Government of the United States had an 
arsenal at the town of Liberty, in the State of 
Missouri, of which Captain Leonard had charge. 
In December, 1855— and the facts which I state 
appear upon the official records of the country — 
Captain Leonard testifies that a Judge Thomp- 
son, in company with a large number of others, 
appeared at the arsenal, overpowered him, con- 
fined him, broke open the magazines, supplied 









themselves with cannon, rifles, swords, and pis- I Perhaps the latter would never have occurred if 

tols, with powder and ball, and took them away I inquiry had been made, and the proper steps had 

enal. This was followed by the in- j been taken when the cry for succor came frot i 

a of a peaceful Territory; not twenty- two Kansas, and her citizens were murdered by the 

only, bul more than a thousand men, very arms taken from thjs arsenal or at any 

led into the adjoining Territory, armed with Irate by persons in the same army with them 

weapons taken by violence from an arsenal of the ! Then the complaints that were made were treated 

States, under the charge of an officer of as the " shrieks of bleeding Kansas" and the T 



the United States, with the avowed object of 
making that Territory a slaveholding State. It 
appears that societies were formed — secret or- 
ganizations — reaching from Missouri into vari- 
ous States, and, among others, the State of Vir- 
giria, whose object and design was by force to 
introduce Slavery into Kansas; and to carry out 
this object, these men seized upon these arms 
and munitions belonging to the Government of 
the United States. Captain Leonard, in his 
statement under oath, says: 

"The Jm and others told me there were troubles in 
Kni wanted arms, but would do nothing wrong 

I told Hi" Judge this «t is aggressive on the 
part oi Missouri, and every community was competent to 
a own affairs, and that the Missourians ought 
er A goo I deal m ire was sua on both sides, 
an i I foil indignant at the aggn ssion. The JuUj e linn : 
didni civil word to me. I had not expected any 

i •■ when I lirst saw the Judge, or I count 
id the gates locked. 
"The mob proceeded to take arni3, forcing the doors, and 
i " ■': thi ••• six-pounders, some . .. pisti Is, rifles, and 

ammunition, powder, balls, &c, as much as they w 

i p ■:;- [ do not know how they pot 
the keys to get into the powder m igaz ae, which is composed 
: had double doors. Captain Price was the lead- 
in the c owd, us I understood. Mr. Rout was there. 
I in the room until the men had got all the arms 
crition they wanted, and had gone away, Judge 
b the lagt one; when he let mc go out, and 

■•■•■ - o i ght days afterwards, the guns were re- 

nal. They were left, I was told, at Col. 
three-quarters of a mile from the arse- 
nal. In the mean tune, I had report • ! the Tarts to C il. Sum- 
and he had sent down a company of dragoons. The 
men sent I i mc to know if 1 would receive the arms, and I 
them I was not in command, and referred them to 
. Bcall, and he told them to bring them along ; they 
-. re received. Among the property taken 
wis sain- artillery harness; I cannot recollect how many 
e - imc deficiencies in the number of rifles", 
; istols, and some harness returned ; but I can- 
not state the precise particulars. These deficiencies have 
r been made up By the citiz :ns of Missouri ; but I have 
i instructed by Col. Craig, the head of the ordnance de.- 
Washington, to purchase sufficient of such arti- 
is I could obtain in the neighborhood to make up the 
•. but the swords, pistols,' and ri- 
.. e have not been abie to make up. I do not know how 
In making up this leficiency. Irn- 
fter tins robber}-, I reported the circumstances to 
..- i ng the number and amount 
if each oi the din* srent art ules taken. I.i th i i ourse of the 
ir,he nt me orders to ship the public property to 
Fort Leavenworth and St. Louis arsenal, giving mo a sched- 

i I i i to be taken to each place, which I did as 

igcned." — House Report No. 200, Thirty- 
, first session, pages 1130-31. 

It seems that the arsenal at Liberty was bro- 
ken up, and what remained of the arms were 
;:;a" d to other military posts. Now, sir, there 



could not be heard. I trust they may get 
a better hearing now. Now. sir, when the 
shrieks of Virginia are heard, and the ears <. f. 
the country are opened, I trust those from Kar. 
sas may get a hearing also. I am prepared t 
hear both ; and I hope that the investigation i 
regard to Harper's Ferry may be impartia 
thorough, and complete, and let whoever is im- 
plicated in the unlawful transactions there be 
held responsible; and so, too, in regard to tbe 
seizure of the arsenal in the State of Missouri, 
I offer the following amendment : 

After the word " invaded," near the end of the resolutia • 
insert : -J ' 

And that said committee also inquire into the facts atteil !- 
ing the invasion, seizure, and robbery , in Dec inber, &1S 
of the arsenal afUM < "'too gmte . ;■, ■ . ,, . V{K A 

Missouri, By a mWb or body of arnica ..',,., r L 

whether sui h seizure an i robbery was attended by rcsi t- 
ance to the authorities ol the United SI ites, and : i low. d •.- 
an invasion of the Territory of Kansas, and the plunder aid 
ol any of its inhabitants, or of any citizen of i ie 
United States, by the persons who thus se msai ,; 

ammunition of the Government, or others combined w. a 
them, whether said seizure raid robb iry of the n serial \v< o 
made under color of any organization intended to subvdrt 
the Government of any of the States or Territories of t ie 
Union ; what was the eharaci di orgiaiiv i- 

tion, and whether any citizens of the United States, nol pres- 
ent, wore implicated therein, or ac to by corci- 
tributions of money, arms, ammunition, o ■; w! it 
was the character and extent of the military equipments *n 
the hands or under the control of said mob, a: d how a: a 
when and where the same were sul used by i t 
mob ; what was the value of the arms and ammunii on ; 
every dc cription so i ken from the said arsenal b 
mob ; whether the same or any part th ir ivc 1 n A 
turned, ana the value of such as were lost ; whether Captain 
Luther Leonard, the United States officer in command of tho 
arsenal, communicated the facts in rel; to its uziir i 1 
robbery to his superior officer, and what measun s, it any, 
were taken in reference thereto. 

December ,7, 1S59. 

Mr. PUGH, of Ohio, having made an appeal 
to Mr. Trumbull to withdraw his amendment, 

Mr. TRUMBULL said: 

After what has been said, particularly by the 
Senator who last addressed the Senate, [Mr. 
Chesnut,] in regard to the apprehension that 
something may be drawn out in the course of 
this investigation which may fasten the insurrec- 
tion at Harper's Ferry upon the Republican party, 
and it appearing, also, by the statements of the 
Senators from Virginia, that the object of t- '3 
resolution is to ascertain the public se>*fment 
of the North, I am a little astonished that aay 
person can ask me to withdraw an amendment 
which will lead also to ascertaining what the 



is a vi ;■;.- striking similarity between the break- , sentiment of the South may be. 



i that arsenal and the attack upon the 
one a; Harper's Ferry. The question of Slavery 
had to do with both. The arsenal in Missouri 
i iken into for the purpose of obtaining 
anas to force Slavery upon Kansas; the arsenal 
at Harper's Ferry was taken possession of for the 
purpose of expelling Slavery from the State of 
Virginia — both unjustifiable, and, it seems to 
me, both prooer subjects to be inquired into. 



I have been appealed to to state why this 
amendment was offered. I will tell yoii, sir, ami 
it will be but a repetition of what I stated ; > ■>- 
terday. I believe the outbreak at Harper's Fei'ry 
has arisen, not from the teachings and the acts 
of the Republican party, or any of its leaders, or 
anybody in its ranks, as the Senator from South 
Carolina supposes, but from the teachings of fie 
party with which he himself is associated. T!jc 



XCHAI 



Orvi 






ii 1/ 



/ 



Democratic party, by upholding and never re- 
buking the sacking of the arsenal in Missouri, by 
rewarding with office the men who did it, by 
sending the Federal troops, they having control 
of the Government at the time, into Kansas, to 
hold in confinement men indicted upon trumped- 
up charges of treason, set an example to the 
country which engendered the spirit that mad- 
dened Brown. 1 need not and will not go over 
the history of that transaction, which the Senator 
from Wisconsin has just detailed. I offered the 
Amendment in good faith, as being pertinent to 
the original resolution, as properly connected 
with il Dg to a similar transaction. 

But it is asked why I did not call for this in- 
vestigation five years ago. "Well, to begin with, 
the occurrence was only four years since. But 
of what use would it have been for me to have 
moved in the Senate for a committee of investi- 
gation ? Dots the Senator from South Carolina 
inppose that the Senate or the country has for- 
gotten how everything relating to Kansas was 
here? A proposition offered in the 
ite of the United States to inquire into these 
matters would nave been scouted at the time. 1 
that I offered several propositions in 
order to remedy the difficulties in Kansas, not 
one of which received the sanction of tin- 
rue. [ ] 1 to repeal the laws abridging the 
Kansas — laws which 
1 a in .u to imprisonment for y ars who 
3 that Slavery did not exist 
in th ry. All my propositions were 
voted down. 

There was a condition of things then existing 
would have wide any effort in this li- 
ly useless. 
Now, hov. rent feeling prevails. An- 

; :i of. There 

is a difference between the two cases. I do not 
l that the arms of the Government al 
Harper's Ferry were appropriated to the use of 
the il ' ut in .Missouri the public anus 

wen-. art have never been return- 

ed, at eiiin command was directed to 

supply oth bypurchase, which he has 

done. 

I think that the two things properly go to- 
gether, and that one should lie inquired into as 
i as the other. As great an outrage was 
committed four years ago, in taking possession 
of the arsenal . I . as was committed a 

month or two ion of the 

armory al Harper's Ferry. I 

Is of dollars worth of property 
were t Harpei 

were quence of the I 

possession of the arsenal at Liberty. I appre- 
iv here one life was lost in consequence 
of the acts at Harper's Ferry, many lives were 
lost it nee of the taking possession of 

I at Liberty and the events that fol- 
lowed it. with the arms which were 
lied from that arsenal that Lawrence was 
imped at Waka- 
•i '■ re weapons from the United 
i arsenal, to \vl. I am unable to 
(•v. I should like to see the official report that 
rf -- ma i • to the War Department at the time 
tu3 transaction occurred. I recollect that we 



passed resolutions calling upon the President, or 
upon the proper Department, and probably upon 
both, for all the papers and correspondence in 
regard to these matters, but I have no recollec- 
tion of having ever seen the official report of the 
officer commanding at Liberty at the time tho 
arsenal was taken possession of by this Missouri 
mob. 

Now, sir, as I nm up, I will reply to some of 
the statements of the Senator from South Caro- 
lina, lie says that he claims only that which 
is the right of the South— the right to take 
slaves to the common Territories of the United 
States. Sir. they have no such right. We do 
not deny the equality of the States which hold 
slaves. I am as much for maintaining the equal- 
ity of the States of the Union as the Senator 
from South Carolina ; but what on earth has the 
introduction of Slavery into a Territory to do 
with the rights of any State, North or South? 
Has any State, as a State, a right to take a slave 
into a Territory? The Senator will not pretend 
that. Then why talk about State rights ? The 
most that can be claimed is, that individuals re- 
siding in different States of the Union may take 
their properly, if it happens to be in slaves, into 
the Territories. Well, that is not a State right; 
it is an individual right, if it exists at all. We 
ot propose to impose on the Senator from 

. Carolina, or any of his constituents, an 
inequality in that respect. If he cannot take a 

into the Territory of Kansas, neither can I. 

ft' the citizens of South Carolina cannot take 

Shivery there, neither can the citizens of Illinois. 

tate are precisely the same. 

Now, you of the South are threatening to 

dissolve the Union, and break up the Confed- 

, because, as you charge, the Northern 

• are assailants and aggressors on your 
rights. Is the whole history of this country for- 

; ? How is it. that the moment this Gov- 
it was formed, one of the first acts of the 
men who made it was to provide that Slavery- 
should not go into the Territories belonging to 
the United States? Is it possible that the men 

made this Government would, in the first 
I under it, pass a law so unjust 
to a portion of the States of the Union as to 
justify their breaking it up? How was it that 
South Carolina herself agreed to exclude Sla- 
very from the State, then Territory, which I 
have the honor, in part, to represent? 

Sir, we lived under this policy' ; the great 
Northwest was settled under this policy of ex- 
cluding Slavery from the Territories of the Uni- 
ted States; and how is it that neither South 
dina nor Virginia found out that they were 
not treated as equals in this Confederacy ? , 
Why, sir, at so late a period as 1848, when a 
Southern man was President of the United 

-, Congress, by direct act, excluded Slavery 
from Oregon. Now, can it be that there is any 
such thing as inequality or injustice to any 

tif this Union in the exclusion of Slavery 
from a Territory? Will the Senator from South 
Carolina do his ancestors the injustice to believe 
th.it they submitted to the degradation and dis- 
honor, as he now calls it, of being excluded from 
the common Territories of the country? Sir, 
they chose it, not as a degradation, not as a dis- 



Honor, but for wise purposes, and to accomplish 
great ends. The founders of our Government 
were men who, in their day, believed the insti- 
tution of Slavery to be an evil in the country. 
They found it here. They did not see the means 
of getting rid of it immediately. They would 
not abolish it at once. They conferred upon the 
Federal Government no power to interfere with 
it in the States which formed the Federal Gov- 
ernment ; but they gave power to this Federal 
Government to prevent its extension. They took 
steps immediately after the Government was 
organized to prevent Slavery from going into 
any portion of the territory then belonging to 
the United States. I know, sir, that Slavery 
went into Tennessee, Mississippi, and other 
States, but it went there in defiance of the Fed- 
eral Government. The territories composing 
those States were ceded to the United States on 
condition that the United States should not ex- 
clude Slavery from them ; but the territory 
northwest of the river Ohio was ceded without 
any such condition, and Congress immediately 
excluded Slavery, with the acquiescence of the 
South — yea, sir, the South itself moving in the 
matter ; and your own great man, the great 
statesman of America, himself is the author of 
the provision which excluded Slavery from the 
Northwestern Territory. 

We deny that there is any disposition in any 
portion of the North to treat the South as une- 
quals in this common Confederacy. 

Having shown that to some extent, I wish to 
come back, and inquire of the Senator from 
South Carolina, and his associates, what is the 
meaning of the resolutions adopted in the South- 
ern States, and of the speeches made by promi- 
nent men in the Southern States, in which they 
declare that in case a certain individual is elect- 
ed President of these United States, in a consti- 
tutional way, or in case the Republican party 
elect a President of the United States, that they 
will take steps for the formation of a Southern 
Confederacy and the dissolution of the Union. 
13 not that treating us as unequals ? What do 
you mean by it? You come into the Senate of 
the United States, and charge the North with act- 
ing unequally and unjustly towards you ; and yet 
you say to the North, " although we have united 
together in a common Confederacy, i 1 which we 
have agreed that the Chief Magistrate shall be 
elected in a particular way, and by a majority 
expressed in the constitutional form, yet, ifyou so 
elect a man, we will break up the Government ! " 
What is that but saying, " we are your superiors, 
and your majority shall submit to what the mi- 
nority think proper to dictate?" 

Mr. CHESNUT. Does the Senator desire an 
answer now? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CHESNUT. I will simply state, so far as 
it is within my knowledge, what I believe to be 
the meaning of that declaration. It is not charg- 
ing the North with inferiority. The declarations 
having been made by tho3e who entertain them, 
I presume go upon the ground of a distinct, un- 
mistakable, clear enunciation of principles — 
principles which subvert the Constitution of the 
United States, the rights and equality of the 
States, and which are held up in advance to us, 



that " this will be our programme ; this will be 
the course of action that we will pursue, and we 
notify you in advance." Now, sir, what is that 
programme? What have they announced to us 
as the " irrepressible conflict?" Does the Sen- 
ator suppose that when the distinguished leader 
of that party announced to the world that the 
wheat-fields and the rye-fields of Massachusetts 
and New York must ultimately be tilled by slave 
labor, that he meant any such thing — that he 
supposed for a moment that that was to be the 
result of this " irrepressible conflict ? " No, sir ; 
but the other branch of the alternative — that the 
sugar plantations of Louisiana and the cotton 
and rice plantations of South Carolina shall be 
tilled by free labor, and by free labor only. That 
is a declaration of war. 

It is a declaration against the rights of the 
people, secured by the compact and the Consti- 
tution of the country, and wc are' forewarned. 
Notwithstanding this may be a constitutional, 
election, that a majority, according to the pre- 
scribed forms of the Constitution, have a right to 
elect, and the election is valid, yet, rather than, 
submit to a fate forewarned, they who think so 
give timely notice that they do not intend to 
submit to it. It is a degradation by a proclama- 
tion in advance, to be mfet by a counter-procla- 
mation, without touching the inferiority of the 
Northern States at all. Sir, it is not the men, it 
is not the party, it is not the States, but it is the 
principle, that "we subjugate you; give us the 
reins of power, and we will place you at our 
feet; we will take from you what you have, qui- 
etly ifyou will yield, forcibly ifyou do not; and 
we will hold you under the power of this Fed- 
eral Government, subject to the domination of a 
party whose principles are in violation," accord- 
ing to our judgment, "of every principle of the 
Constitution." That, I presume, is the meaning 
of those who profess that sentiment. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, it is just 
such speeches as this we have listened to from 
the Senator from South Carolina based upon a 
misunderstanding of the Republican party of the 
North, that has misled the Sduth. The North 
intends no encroachment upon the South. The 
Republican party is a party, in its principles, pub- 
lic and avowed to the world, and it is because of 
the misrepresentation of the objects and views of 
that party that the prejudices of the South have 
been excited against it, and chiefly by the mis- 
representations which have been made by r this 
so-called Democratic party in the North. They 
choose to call every person that does not unite 
with them an Abolitionist. 

I was born and bred up in the Democratic 
faith, acted with the Democratic party, sustained 
its measures and its men upon principle when 
that party was divided from the Whig parly 
upon questions of finance, in regard to the com- 
mercial interests of the country, and other great 
questions. But, in 1854, what was done? I 
was oie of those who acquiesced in the measures 
of 1850, and agreed to abide by the settlement 
then made. I heard with delight the declarator*' 
of Franklin Pierce, when inaugurated Preside) 1 " 
and in his message, that the settlement of )Hi Ui 
should suffer no shock which he could prcvc aC 
during his Administration. I was glad win 



I 



tbo Kansas-Nebraska bill was introduced, ac- 
companied by the report of a committee in this 
body, declaring that to repeal the Missouri com- 
promise would be a departure from the meas- 
ures of 1850. It was said that the compromise 
measures of 1850 had given peace to the coun- 
trv : that the Slavery question was forever after- 
wards to be banished from the Halls of Congress, 
and that no man was to be tolerated who should 
under any pretence whatever, in Congress or out 
of Congress, attempt to stir up again this exci- 
ting question. 

I, in good faith, supposed that these declarat- 
ions meant something; and therefore when, in 
1854, notwithstanding these assurances to the 
country, the proposition was sprung upon it to 
repeal the Missouri compromise, and open Kan- 
sas to Slavery, and when the measure was made 
the test and the only test of party faith, I did 
refuse to co-operate with the party which made 
i .: i t of its political faith. Then it 

: be oil Democratic party and the Whig 
party were broken up. They were both disband- 
(•'!, and a new question was thrust upou the 
country, which had not before been in issue be- 
tween partie . When it was thrust upon us, ami 
parties and persons took issue upon the qui 

ie n peal of the .Missouri compromise and the 
as to Slavery, I united with that 
party which took ground against the repeal ot 
the Missouri compromise, and in favor of stand- 
ing by what all parties had agreed to but four 
\> : is previous — ay, sir, hut two years previous, 
when the nominati Ltheirre pective candidates 
1 . j i t To style the party that now 

mocratic, the successor of the old 
D tocratic party, is a misnomer. It is no more 

or of that party than the Republican 
party. The country seems to have forgotten, 
and gentlemen who use this word '• Democratic,'' 
as it it had Bome meauing, at this day, seem to 

tl at a majority of the mem 
of the Bouse of Representatives from the North- 
era State* of the Democratic party voted against 
the repeal of the Missouri compromise. It was 
a minority of the Democratic party that favored 
thai measure, and then it was that these new 
parties were formed, compo3ed ot persons who 
had lido!.- belonged indiscriminately either to 
the Whig or the Democratic parly. 

Whon the Senator from South Carolina at- 
tribi ; to the Republican party of the North the 

h he does, h3 entirely misapprehends 
the view 3 of that party. They have been reit- 

tmdred times. 1 wish I had a voice 
that I could reiterate them so that every man in 
South should hear. I would say tp every 
the Gulf to the Potomac, the Republi- 
can party plants itself on this Slavery question 
ely mi the ground upon which your own 
Washington and Jefferson stood. We avow in 
our platform of principles that we will abide by 
the Constitution. We have no intention of in- 

vith your domestic institutions; and 
when the Senator from South Carolina talks 
North interfering with the institutions 
Of the South, 1 ask when, where? Never, sir. 
I but you exclude us from the common ter- 
■ an interference with your insti- 
tutions? Wai it an interference in 1787 ? Was 



it an interference in 1789, when your own great 
men passed the act to exclude Slavery from the 
Territories? You did not so regard it. Did 
those men put a dishonor upon themselves ? We 
believe that these Territories are the common 
property of the United States, as much as you ; 
we tell you that a man who has no slaves has 
as much right to go there as a man who has 
slaves ; that one has just as much right to settle 
in the Territories of the United States as another; 
but we tell you that no man can take the insti- 
tutions of his State, along with him wherever he 
goes. When he goes beyond the jurisdiction of 
his State, and enters some other jurisdiction, the 
local laws which governed him in the State 
whence he emigrated cease to operate. 

The Constitution of the United States has ex- 
pressly conferred upon Congress authority to 
govern these Territories, and the authority has 
always been exercised. It is altogether a mis- 
taken notion that any inequality is put upon 
Southern men by refusing to extend Slavery in- 
to the Territories. Why, sir, in the Southern 
States, a majority of your white population are 
not slaveholders. Not one in ten, only a*bout 
one in twenty of your population own slaves, 
and if you will divide them into families, I sup- 
pose that not one family in five in all the South- 
ern States owns a slave. We believe that it is 
for the interests of this great country, for the 
interests of the people who are to settle our 
Territories, that they should be settled by free 
white people. What interest have four families 
out of five in the Southern States in introducing 
Slavery into Kansas, or into any free territory ? 
Will you tell me that it is putting a degradation 
on them, unless they are permitted to introduce 
slaves into the Territories? They have none to 
introduce. They do not want Slavery. Nine 
out of ten of your white population in Carolina 
own no slaves, and at least four out of five of 
the families of that State, I presume, have no 
slaves. Is it a degradation then upon them? 
Who is it upon? Why, if on any one, it is on 
your one-twentieth person ; and legislation to 
protect his interests, at the expense of nineteen- 
twentieths, is to be brought about in the name 
ot Democracy. I said a degradation upon the 
one-twentieth person. It is no degradation 
upon him. It is no degradation upon any man. 
You of the South, as citizens of this common 
country, are as much interested in keeping the 
Territories free as we of the North. Most of 
your people own no slaves, and, as a matter of 
course, would prefer, when they emigrate, to 
come into a non-slaveholding country. The 
State in which I reside has in it hundreds and 
thousands and tens of thousands of people from 
the slaveholding States. They want no Slavery, 
and I suppose if the question were to be submit- 
ted to the citizens of Illinois to-morrow, whether 
Slavery should be introduced, although there- 
are thousands of voters from Maryland, Virginia, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, 
and South Carolina, it would not get one vole 
in ten thousand in the State. 

Mr. YULEE. Will the Senator allow me to 
interrupt him a moment? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. YULEE. The Senator undertook just 



G 



now to enlighten us in respect to the attitude of 
the party of which he is a member upon this 
slave question. I am very solicitous to know 
precisely where the Senator's party stands upon 
that question, and what is the purpose of the 
organization/for I understand the organization 
to refer mainly to the question of Slavery. 1 
desire to know the precise position of the party 
to which the Senator belongs, and which prin- 
cipally prevails in the Northern States on that 
subject. 

Mr. TRUMBULL; If the Senator from Florida 
cannot understand the principles of the Republi- 
can party, which have been proclaimed and 
published to the world, he is certainly not a very 
apt scholar, and I shall almost despair of enlight- 
ening him. Our principles are emblazoned be- 
fore the country and published in the platforms 
of the party. Did he never read them, or has 
he gone on. without reading our principles, and 
misunderstanding them ? 

Mr. YULEE. I have certainly read them ; 
but, unfortunately, never understood them. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Then, if I can be the means 
of enlightening my friend from Florida as to 
any particular part of our platform that he can- 
not understand, it will afford me great pleasure 
to do so. 

Mr. WADE. I think it will take until morning 
to do this, and I therefore move that the Senate 
do now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate 
adjourned. 

December 8, 1359. 

Mr. TRUMBULL said : 

Mr. President, just before the adjournment of 
this body yesterday, I was called upon by the 
Senator from Florida [Mr. Yulee] to state what 
were the principles of the Republican party. 

Sir, 1 did suppose that the Senator from Flor- 
ida, and every Senator, could understand, if he 
desired to do so, what our principles were. They 
have been proclaimed by an authoritative Con- 
vention of the party, in language as p'ain as it is 
in the power of man to employ ; and it is only by 
mystification, by misrepresentations of them in 
many portions of the country, as I think, that 
the public mind of the South has been excited 
against the Republican party. I have brought 
along with me their declaration of principles, 
and, so far as it relates to the Slavery question, 
I will read it ; it is brief, and. I should like to 
know to what portion of it the Senator from 
Florida, or any other Senator or individual, 
North or South, objects. Here it is : 

" Resolved, That the maintenance of the principles promul- 
gated in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in 
the Federal Constitution, are essential to the preservation of 
our Republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitu- 
tion, the rights of the States, and the Union of the States, 
must and shall be preserved." 

Does the Senator from Florida understand 
that — that the Constitution ot the United States, 
the rights of the States, and the principles em- 
bodied in the Constitution, must and shall be 
preserved? 

Mr. YULEE. I want to know how you con- 
strue the Constitution ? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. We will tell you. We say 
ourselves how we construe it on the Slavery 
question : 



" Resolved, That, with our remiblican fathers, we hold it 
to be a self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the 
inalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness; and that the primary object and ulterior design of our 
Federal Government is, to grant these rights to all persons 
under its exclusive jurisdiction. That as our republican 
fathers, when they had abolished Slavery in all our national 
territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, 
liberty, or property, without due process of law, it becomes 
our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution 
(against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of estab- 
lishing Slavery in the Territories of the United States) by 
positive legislation prohibiting its existence or extension 
therein. That We deny the authority of Congress, of a- Ter- 
ritorial Legislature, of any individual or association of indi- 
viduals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory 
of the United States, while the present Constitution shall bo 
maintained. 

" Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress 
sovereign power over the Territories of the United States, for 
their government; and that, in the exercise of this power, it 
is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to pro- 
hibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, Polyg- 
amy and Slavery." 

That is the whole platform of the Republican 
party on the subject of Slavery. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. Will the Senator from Il- 
linois allow me to ask him a question? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. If it be true, as that last 
resolution states, that the Constitution confers 
upon Congress sovereign power over the Terri- 
tories of the United States, for their government, 
why is it that that power, which the resolution 
declares to be sovereign in Congress — by which, 
I presume, is meant a supreme power, a power 
which has no superior — is not capable of being 
exercised for the establishment of Slavery in a 
Territory, as well as for the prohibition of Sla- 
very in a Territory? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, the power 
which the Federal Government may exercise 
over a Territory is sovereign power in its gov- 
ernment, as we all know and understand, within 
the Constitution of the United States. The Con- 
stitution of the United States declares that Con- 
gress shall pass no law establishing any partic- 
ular form of religion or abridging the freedom of 
speech or of the press. I readily admit, and so 
does the Republican party, that the Congress of 
the United States cannot pass a law abridging 
the freedom of speech in any one of the Territo- 
ries. They are expressly prohibited from so 
doing. They have the sovereign power over the 
Territories, to legislate for them in all matters 
within the Constitution of the UnitedStates; and 
the Constitution of the, United States does not 
authorize Congress to establish Slavery. The 
Constitution is based upon this principle. It 
does not establish Slavery At all, but merely 
tolerates it where it already exists by virtue of 
State laws. That is the meaning of the Consti- 
tution cf the United States. It is a Constitution 
of Freedom, the word " slave" not occurring in 
it, and the men who framed the Constitution be- 
lieved that in the process of time there would be 
no slaves in any portion of the Confederacy, and 
one of its principal authors objected to the use 
of the word "slave," lest future generations 
might know that there was Slavery in some of 
the States when the Constitution was formed 
If you will turn to that clause of the Constitu- 
tion relating to the reclamation of fugitive slaves, 
you will find that it reads, that " no person liel 1 
to service or labor in one State, under the laws 



. 



thereof," that 13, under the laws of the State, 
"escaping into another, shall, in consequence of 
any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered 
up." There is no provision for the delivering 
up of a man who is held to service by any other 
than a State law. If held to service by virtue 
of the Constitution, that instrument contains no 
provision for his return when he escapes from 
one State to another. This shows that the tra- 
iners of the Constitution never contemplated that 
a person could be held to service, whether as a 
slave or as an apprentice, except by virtue of 
State laws, else the provision for reclamation 
would have been general, and not limited to 
persons so held. Would the Senator from Del- 
aware contend that, under this clause of the 
Constitution, he could reclaim a person held as 
a slave, by virtue of that instrument, who had 
escaped from one State into another? Sup 
a person comes into the State of Delaware, who, 
it is contended, is a slave, and his alleged owner 
comes to reclaim him — would you give him up it 
he did not show that lie was held as a - 
under the laws of the State from which he es- 
d? If you would not, then, as a matter of 
course, you could not give up a person who was 
held as a slave in one of the Territories, because 
he could not be so held in a Territory by virtue 
of any State law. 

I be misunderstood, I will state that I 
do not mean to say that if there is Slavery in 
one of the Territories of the Union, as there was 
Ly the acquiescence of Congress in Ten" 
and Kentucky and in the Southwestern i 
while they were Territories, a negro who i 
as a slave there, and escapes into any of the 
States ol the Union, may not be reclaimed. 1 
hold to no such doctrine. I contend that the 
Congress of the United States have sovereign 
I ower over the Territories, to legislate for them 
within the Constitution, and'bad the right to 
is it did in the enactmenl of the ordi- 
nance ol L787 for the Northwestern Territory, that 
fugitives who should escape to that Territory 
from slavehol liug States should be surrendered 
up. It is by virtue of its sovereign power over 
the Territories, and not by virtue ot the clause 
of the Constitution relating to the return of fugi- 
fr mi one State to another, that Co:. 

La v ' J u hich a person held to service 
or labor iu a Blaveholding Territory may be re- 
claimed when he escapes into a State, and by 

ive in a State who escapes into a free 
Territory maj be reclaimed and brought back to 
the State whence he fled. 

Now, sir, what portion of this platform or 
creed does the Senator from Florida object to? 
I.know what he will say. He objects to that 
pari \\ hich Slavery from the Territories. 

Is thi 

Mr. YULEE, 1 desire to hear from the Sena- 
tor an illustration and exposition of his creed; 
whether he intends us to understand, or bis 
party intend it to be understood, that by the 
Constitution of the United States property in 
Blav.es was abolished, and stands abolished in 
all national territory, and in all territory over 
which we have exclusive jurisdiction. Does he 
mean to say that the tenure iu slave property in 



the District of Columbia, and in the forts and in 
the arsenals, as well as in the Territories of the 
United States, was abolished under the Con- 
stitution, and stands abolished now? 

If there be any meaning in this platform, it is 
a meaning which strikes at the root of property 
in slaves in all the new States of this Con- 
federacy. The ground upon which you rest 
yourself is, that it is not only not in the 
power of Congress, but that it is not in the 
power of a Territorial Government or of any as- 
sociation of individuals, under any pretext or iu 
any form, to give existence to Slavery in a Terri- 
tory. If that be so, all the slaves in Louisiana, 
all the slaves in Tennessee, in Missouri, in every 
other new State of this Confederacy, were free by 
virtue of the Constitution, and are illegally held. 

When the Senator attempts to present to us 
here a principle by which his party io to be rule I, 
we have a right to ask him, and to know, by 
what practical measures of legislation his par y 
propose to give effect to the principle which they 
undertake to assert. Now, let us take the case 
of a Territory immediately occupied by emigrants 
from a Southern State, and by them alone, ac 
companied with their slave property, which the 
Supreme Court declares to be legally their prop- * 
erty there — I wish to know by what practical 
measure of legislation the Senator proposes to 
_rtve effect to his principle. Is it by a code to 
abolish the property of the slaveholder in his 
slaves there? Is that what he proposes to do? 
[f the people of the Territory desire to use that 
form of labor, does he mean to deny them tl 
right, and to deny it by an act of the Federal 
Legislature prohibiting the enjoyment of that 
right to the inhabitants of the Territory? 

More than that: if, when they come to form 
Ives into a sovereign community, and pre- 
sent themselves here, under the Federal Consti- 
tution, for admission as a State of this Union, 
with a clause in their Constitution protecting 
■ ty, I wish to know whether it is apart 
ol the policy and purpose of the party of which 

■ Senator is a member, giving effect to the 
principle here asserted as their rule of action, to 
reject the application. 

It the end and aim of the Senators organiza- 
tion is limited to the Territorial question, and 
when that is done with, all is done with it on the 
slave question, then the South will know, so far, 
what to expect from them. 

Next, so far as the Territorial question is con- 
cerned, I ask tl. ■ Senator to give us the practical 
measures by which they propose to give applica- 
tion to their principles, and to tell us upon what 
ground they assert that property in slave- is al - 
ished by the Constitution, and yet justify a con- 
tinued recognition of that right in the District of 
Columbia, the forts and arsenals, and those of 
I rritories of the United States in which it 
has been permitted, not only by the acquiesce c ■ 
but by the direct authority of law, to exist, ibr 
was the case in Tennessee, and in other 
portions of the new States. Congress did, by ex- 
press enactment, authorize the existence of Sla- 
very. I yield to the Senator. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I am glad, 
this discussion has arisen. I have no right to 
impeach the motives of gentlemen on the other 



side ; I suppose they really labor und^r some 
misapprehension in regard to our principles. I 
think, if we could understand each other, the 
good old times, when a man from the South and 
a man from the North could meet together in a 
friendly spirit, without any dispute upon this 
question, would return. I think misapprehension 
is the foundation of the great controversy upon 
vhe Slavery question. 

The Senator has thought proper to speak of 
the South. He speaks ot the degradation, as he 
calls it, to the South, of excluding them from a 
Territory 

Mr. YULEE. That was the Senator's own 
word. 1 rarely quoted his own language. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. We mean no degradation 
to the South. I am sorry that the word "South" 
has been used with regard to this alleged right 
to extend Slavery to a Territory. I tried yester- 
day to explain that the South is made up of a 
great many persons who are not slaveholders, 
by tar many mure than the slaveholders, and 
therefore 1 do not know what right those who 
hold slaves have to arrogate to themselves that 
they are the South. They are a portion of the 
• South, and a small portion only, about one- 
twentieth part, as shown by the census. 

The Senator asks if this platform of principles 
is only intended to apply to the Territories. Most 
assuredly the Republican party had its origin in 
the question of Slavery in regard (o the Territo- 
ries. It was the departure from the policy of 
this Government, from the day of its foundation 
down to 1S54, which gave rise to che Republican 
.1 riy. It was an organization in reference to 
the question of Slavery in the Territories, and 
nowhere else. There is nothing in this platform 
in regard to the question of Slavery in the States 
of this Union; and, lest I forget it, permit me to 
say that I speak not for the Republican party, 
except as its platform speaks. I claim no au- 
thority to be its exponent. Its exponent is its 
principles, as declared here in this document. 

Mr. YULEE. I desire to have his exposition of 
the platform, or what he presents as his plat- 
form. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. The Senator speaks of what 
I present as the platform. Now, is it possible 
that the Senator from Florida has not seen, and 
does not know, this platform? Is there any 
other? Why say, " what I present as the plat- 
form ? I' Why net say, '• the platform of I he Re- 
publican r <aity V " Why should we seek here, in 
the Senate of the United States, to mislead any- 
body ? I am sorry tve cannot speak of admitted 
facts, as they are. We are trying here, I trust, 
to arrive at an understanding with each other. 
That is niy object; and I wish to do away with 
all these clap-trap expressions and these ugly 
name-i that are used for the purpose of exciting 
prejudice. Why is it that members of the Sen- 
ate of the United States, and that the Cabinet 
officers of the country, talk of the Republican 
party as the Black Republican party ? Do they 
want to create a prejudice against it? The Sen- 
ator did not use that word. 

Mr. YULEE. No, I did not use it. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I happened to speak of it 
now — it has been used in this debate — because 



the Senator seemed to cast a suspicion upon the 
platform. Why, sir, there is but the one. 

Mr. YULEE. It may be. I would state here 
to the Senator, that I did not use the term Black 
Republican. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I have said you did not. 

Mr. YULEE. But I did not use the term Re- 
publican here, for the reason, as I said last nigbtj 
that that term and that party denomination hav- 
ing been once consecrated by a national party of 
far other, and, as I humbly think, higher objects 
than the present party, no party, whatever its 
objects may be, has the right to appropriate that 
name. It has become the property of a prece- 
ding party, and therefore some qualification of 
the term Republican, by which the gentleman's 
party may be defined, ought to be adopted. I 
will not myself apply a qualification, but leave 
it to that party to discover, as I hope they will, 
some qualification of the term Republican. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, it is because 
we advocate every principle advocated by T the 
old Republican party that we adopt its name ; 
and I say to the Senator to-day, show me a de- 
parture from the principles of the Republican 
party of Thomas Jefferson's days, and I will op- 
pose that departure in the Republican party of 
to-day. It is because we advocate the princi- 
ples of Thomas Jefferson, because we advocate 
the principles of the Republican party of 1800, 
that we, call . ourselves Republicans; and, if I 
know myself, I will adhere to the principles of 
the old Republican party in regard to ibis ques- 
tion. The father of that party is our great model. 
Our principles are taken from him. The very 
words of our platform which the gentleman ob- 
jects to, were indited by his baud. 

Mr. YULEE. '-To create, not to destroy, a 
free government?" 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir ; and we will per- 
petuate free government by continuing the prin- 
ciples that he advocated. But, sir, what beyond 
that? How has it come, from a gentleman upon 
that side of the House, to tell us we must not 
call ourselves Republicans, when they assume 
to call themselves Democrats ? Democrats ! 
And the illustration of your principle, democ- 
racy, is the supremacy of an aristocracy of slave- 
holders in this country. Any man can be a 
member of the Democratic party who will adopt 
your creed on the subject of the spread of Sla- 
very, and the upholding of slaveholding institu- 
tions in this country, which concern directly not 
one man in sixty of the population of this Union. 
That is the party that has arrogated to itself 
the name of '• Democrat," and that reproaches 
us for calling ourselves Republicans. Dem- 
ocrats! A party that legislates for the interest 
of one out of sixty — forgetting the interest of 
four-fifths of the families of the South to pro- 
mote that of one-fifth. 

The Senator wishes to know if Slavery was 
abolished by the Constitution of the United 
States. I have already said, no; Slavery y/ns 
not abolished by the Constitution of the United 
States. I stated before, and I will try to repeat 
it again, that the Constitution was 1 a n d upon 
the idea of Freedom, but it did not abolish Sla- 
very where it existed by State or local law. It 
did not interfere to do that. It allowed the 



9 



States to manage that for themselves, and pro- 
vided that, when one held to service shquld es- 
to another State, where Slavery did not 
i be reclaimed; and I wish the 
or to understand from me that I acquiesce 
tuse of the Constitution of the United 
1 recognise your right to reclaim the 
person who runs away, bat I think it should lie 
done roper manner, without 

ding in toe country. 
Mr. CLAY. Will the Senator allow me a mo- 
meut, to ask him whether he recognises the 
i fugitive slaves in the Territo- 
ries '.' 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I do, under an act of Con- 

• to Territories. 
Mr. CLAY. Then 1 will ask him to re 

iscrepancy between the platform 

id and the position he now 

»r ia that platform, as he read ','., it 

i ... i i ither Congress nor any indi- 

any legal assistance to Slavery 

within ories. 

Mr. 1 I legal existence to 

^ rritory," i . i -ire. We 

ih it the right to reclaim a fugitive pi 
■ 

it te. We have expn p pro- 

■ 
thai .- 

Bay to the m Alabama, that if a slave 

o! I.i ■ State et' [iiinois, we , 

owner to reclaim him, and 
i i ■ tory. 
• LAY. If i r will pardon me 

I ■ upting hi'.n. 1 u . ut iij the plat- 

tbe word i . istance," no "ex i . " and 

::i of that p irty 
ftortl 
•• exi tence.' I 

i . 

Mr. , . nd is "exi 

in the plal i I I never un . x- 

.i dit- 

: reof it. 

Mr. CLAY. Still, if the Si nator will pardon 

jne, Eupp I the 

word shou aimi d uj hitn, 

i e wiih his 
theoi pla form, of the 

■ of all men to liberty, and the obligation of 
the 1 1 Go i cure that right 

within the Territories, the countervailing obliga- 
tion to I ve. 

[r. President, 1 will try to 

him my understanding of it 

impartially as 1 am able. 1 un- 

iat part of the platform to 

B -riiou of a gre . what 

1 understand by those wo. Declaration 

, wherein it is declared that "all 

men are i tal, and endowi 1 by their 

I the Government, " with certain 

.i.ong which are lite, liberty 

the pursuit of happiness." Now, I do not 

understand that our fathers supposed they could 

carry out these principles perfectly in govern- 



ment. Every Government, as I had occasion to 
say in this debate before, is an encroachment, 
more or less, on the natural rights of man. What 
did they mean? Why, sir, the men who signed 
their names to that immortal Declaration of In- 
dependence were men who either themselves or 
their ancestors had fled from despotisms in the 
Old World. They had seen men claiming to rule 
by D.vine right as kings; they had seen another 
class of men claiming to rule and lord it ove? - 
the mass of their fellow-beings by hereditary 
right, and they intended to pm it upon record in 
this formation of the Government which they 
were m-vking, that their posterity in all time 
might know that they recognised no Divineright 
of one man over another, no hereditary right of 
lords and nobles to trample upon their fellow 
me .. Naturally, no sucn right can exis;. It is 
but the assertion of powei ; rowing out of the 
mizatiou of Governments. Car ancestors in- 
1 to form a Government as near the great 
tural right as they could. As 
.Mr. Jefferson said, the most perfect Government 
on earth would be one which secured to hou- 
I'ruits of its own industry, and in- 
ed no more than was necessar to prevent 
anarchy, or the encroachments of the strong 
upon the weal;. I do not quote his beautiful 
it. the idea.. This is what 1 under- 
i meant by this platform of principles 
in that respect. 

CLAY. Will the Senator pardon me for 
asking him a further question? 
Mr. TRUMBULL. Undoubtedly: 
Mr. CLAY. 1 do not mean to interrupt him; 
. isposed to be candid and com- 
municative, 1 will tiouuie him wen a. further 
q . ■ ion. t would be glad if he can explain how 
n reconcile with toe personal integrity of 
imers of Lhe Declaration ol Independence 
Lhe federal Constitution, tht ir holding slaves, 
and retaining tbem as slaves, and distributing 
them by their last will and testament among 
i children, with their declaration that those 
i were entitled to life and Lberty; and if no 
■ ■an reconcile these matters, 1 wo ild ask him, 
. . lermore, whether he unders an !s the words 
• Declaration of Independence, or of the 
i Ci i'-i union, which declares that the 
C a citution was formed for ourselves and our 
posterity, to embrace also the negroes. 

Mr. TtiUMB'ULL. I reconcile what seems to 
lhe gentleman to be a contradiction in this way: 
fathers had to deal with circumstances as 
they were. They declared great fundamental 
principles. The Senator from Alabama will 
a.Tee with me, that any evil is wrong; that any 
lachment upon the natural rights of any of 
us (and our Government restrains us more or 
less) is only to be justified upon the ground that 
it is necessary for organized society and lor 
government, and that men could not live to- 
gether, except in eternal quarrels, unless we ha 1 
a government of some kind; but that does not 
militate against the truth that the great Author 
or all created us equal and with the same rights. 
Mr. CLAY. The Senator does not seem to 
apprehend the force of my question. Perhaps I 
did not put it fairly. According to the declara- 
tion in your platform, as read, 1 understand youi 



10 



party to maintain that the negro enjoys, in com- 
mon with the white man, an inalienable right to 
liberty. You denounce the violation of that 
right as a crime, a sin in the eye of Heaven, 
and a crime against the laws of man ; a violation 
of the doctrines of Christianity. You denounce 
it as a twin relic of barbarism with polygamy. 
Now, I ask you how you can reconcile it with 
the personal integrity of the framers either of 
the Declaration of Independence or of the Fed- 
eral Constitution} that they sanctioned a crime 
at the same time that they protested against it. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I am satis- 
fied that I am not understood by the Senator 
from Alabama. I say that the negro has the 
same natural rights that 1 have ; and now I Bay 
it is no: a crime, under all circumstances, to hold 
a negro in slavery. 

Mr. CLAY. Why, then, does the Senator's 
party denounce it as a twin relic of barbarism 
with polygamy ? Is not that a crime? Do not 
your laws punish it? Do not the laws of my 
State punish it? And if Slavery is equal in ini- 
quity with polygamy, why should not the laws 
of all tl>e Shifts punish it? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. We would punish polygamy 
in Illinois as a crime ; and we would punish the 
holding of a slave in Illinois as a crime. 

Mr. CLAY. Will the Senator pardon me? I 
do not mean to be officious, and I do not intend 
to by offensive. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not take it so. lam 
very glad, iadeed, to be interrogated. I wish to 
express my gratification at Senators' efforts to 
obtain explanations. 

Mr. CLAY. I wish the Senator to explain 
whether, according to his code of ethics, or that 
of the party to which he belongs, it becomes 
any civilized, any Christian Government, to rec- 
ognise crime ; whether there be any circum- 
stances under which crime can be justified, ex- 
cused, or palliated ? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I will not 
cavil about the word " crime." 1 do not call it 
a crime in citizens of the South to hold slaves 
at all. 

Mr. CLAY. Is not polygamy a crime ? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Polygamy is a crime under 
some circumstances, but not always a crime. I 
take it that polygamy is no crime in Turkey. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that concession, 
in this Christian country. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I think it is no crime in 
Turkey. It is a crime in our Christian country. 
We regard it so, but other nations do not regard 
it as a crime. I do not regard the holding of 
slaves as they are held in the Southern States 
of this Union, and in many other countries, as 
necessarily criminal. That is not the term I 
apply to it. I think it is a wrong to those per- 
sons who are so held, but it is a wrong which 
had better be endured than to do worse. It is 
better to be endured than to undertake to right 
it by committing a greater wrong and a greater 
evil. 

Mr. CRAY. Then, if the Senator will pardon 
me, I understand him to maintain that right and 
wrong are merely conventional ; that whether 
polygamy bo a crime or not, depends merely 



upon the laws of society or upon the tone ot 
moral sentiment of society. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Not entirely, Mr. President, 
do I concede them to be conventional. Many 
things, doubtless, are either criminal or innocent 
according to the circumstances; and when we 
speak of crime in human society or in political 
organizations, we mean some violation of the 
law3 of the land; and I take it there are no laws 
of the land upon the subject of polygamy in 
some countries, and I suppose it would not, in 
that sense, be a crime in those countries. If the 
gentleman wants my opinion of it morally, which 
I presume he does not, of course I am very will- 
ing to express it. 

Mr. CLAY. Will the Senator pardon me for 
interrupting him ? Would not the taking of a 
human being's life without justifiable or excusa- 
ble cause be a crime, independent of all statu- 
tory provision or legal enactment; and if so, by 
parity of reasoning, is not polygamy a crime ? 
and if so, by the force of your own platform, 
which condemns Slavery equally with polygamy, 
is that not a crime, independent of all human 
legislation? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. The taking of human life 
in the instance the Senator puts, unjustifiably, 
would undoubtedly be a great wrong and a 
crime, and so it would be a gre it wrong and a 
crime to deprive a person of his liberty without 
justifiable or excusable cause. It is always a 
natural wrong, but it is not, in my judgment, a 
crime in every instance. 1 have never so re- 
garded it. This is my explanation of that part of 
the Declaration of Independence which declares 
that all men were created equal, and of the 
enunciation of the same principle in the platform 
of the Republican party. If it means anything 
else, I do not understand it, and the people of 
the State of Illinois do not understand it. It is 
the doctrine we have proclaimed there always, 
and the people of the State of Illinois who be- 
long to the Republican party, belong to it as a 
party adopting the principles of the old Repub- 
lican party ; and as that old Republican party 
kept Slavery out of the Territories, believing it 
to be an evil, we desire to do the same thing, 
and for that purpose the present Republican 
party was organized, because of the change of 
the policy of the Government on the subject of 
Slavery, in undertaking to extend it. 

I may omit to answer fully the Senator from 
Florida. I hope I shall not, and certainly I wi.l 
not omit answering frankly, so far as I am able 
to do so, if I recollect the positions which he 
has assumed, for in this debate it is no interrup- 
tion to me that gentlemen ask questions. I wish 
to deceive nobody. I have no prepared speech 
to make, and therefore it is no interruption to 
me. If I can afford information to any gentle- 
man from the South, that shall disabuse his 
mind as to the objects and views of the. Northern 
people, I shall consider that 1 am pfr'brming a 
service to my country in giving the information. 
• I have not been able to get through with what 
I designed to say in reply to the Senator from 
Florida, the Senator from Alabama having in- 
terposed some questions in the mean time, divci i- 
ing my attention from him. I shall endeavor io 
answer him. The Republican party, as I undci- 



11 



stand, was organized with regard to the Territo- 
rial question ; but if the Senator, when he says 
it is confined altogether to that, means to under- 
stand me a3 saying that the Republican party 
would not make itself efficient in preventing the 
violation of the law in the revival of the African 
elave trade, or anything of that kind, he misun- 
derstands me. The Republican party, on this 
subject of Slavery, would prevent its extension. 
and ; t would enforce the laws equally in the 
North and in the South. While it would not in- 
terpose to prevent the owner of 9 slave from re- 
capturing him in a free State, it would make it- 
self active in preventing violations of the law in 
the Southern States by the introduction of ne- 
groes from the coast of Africa, and the revival of 
the African slave trade. We would administer 
this Government very differe-ulv from the man- 
ner in which it i3 now administered ; and if we 
had control, the army and navy ot the land would 
be as ready to arrest your vessels loaded with 
when they landed upon the Southern 
coast, as they are to arrest a negro that may be 
found loose somewhere in the city of Boston. 

The Senator asked me the question distinctly, 
Was Slavery abolished by the Constitution of the 
United States? No, sir. 

Mr. YULEE. No, sir; I did not ask that ques- 
tion. I asked the meaning of this clause in the 
ilican platf 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Perhaps I shall be able to 

answer; if not, when I get through, the Senator 

can n [uestion. He wanted to know if 

the slaves in Tennessee and Louisiana are freed 

i. No, sir; the Senator certainly 

that. 

.Mr. 5 I do. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. He wanted to know if the 
in the District of Columbia by this 
rm. No. sir. 

Mr. PUGH. May I ask the Senator whether 
he is speaking for bimselt or for the party? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I am speaking for myself ; 
and as I understand 

Mr. PUGH. I thought you were interpreting 
the party. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I am giving my understand- 
ing of the Republican creed, and the way it is 
i stood by the people of the Northwest, who 
arc a conservative, Union-loving, Constitution- 
abidiug pi ople, loyal to the Constitution and to 
the Union, and are no ultraists in any sense of 
the word. 

Mr. ITCH. Will the Senator permit me to ask 
him whether he considers Governor Chase, of 
Ohio, an exponent of the principles of the Re- 
pnblican 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I consider 
that (the platform) the exponent of the princi- 
ples of the Republican party, anil not what any 
one man may say. It is the creed of one million 
three hundred thousand men, and Governor 
I y or may not precisely agree with me 

ia his interpretation of every clause. I do not 
believe n possible there can lie as much differ- 
1 ictween us as there is between the Senator 
h his popular-sovereignty dogma 
ind the great Democratic patty. [Laughter.] 

Mr. PUGH That is just what I want to find 



out; how much difference there is between the 
Senator and the rest of his party. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not believe there is so 
wide a difference as that. 

Mr. YULEE. But the Senator wondered yes- 
terday evening that I was unable to understand 
his platform. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. It seems to me a plain 
platform. It has no Northern and Southern face, 
like your Cincinnati creed. We do not preaeli 
popular sovereignty ia the North, and scout it 
as a humbug in the South. 

Mr. PUGH. You do not preach it in the South 
at all. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. No, sir ; we do not preach 
it in the South at all ; and yet the men who do 
not allow our principles to be proclaimed in the 
South, talk about sectionalism. A sectionalism 
so pure and unadulterated that it will not tol- 
erate the exposition of the principles of its oppo- 
nents at all where it is in power, talks to the 
other party about sectionalism ! 

I say that Slavery was not abolished in Ten- 
nessee and Louisiana by the Constitution. Why. 
sir, does not the Senator from Florida know that 
we acquired Tennessee by a deed of cession that 
prohibited the extension to it of that portion of 
the ordinance of l7S7*which excluded Slavery ? 
Slavery existed there, not by virtue of the Con- 
stitution creating it, but by virtue of local law, 
and that is the authority which establishes Sla- 
very everywhere. Slavery can exist nowhere 
except by virtue of local law, and that is the 
reason why the person who owns a slave in a 
State cannot hold him as a slave, under the law 
of his State, in a Territory where Slavery has 
never been established. The Senator wants to 
know if Congress can confiscate his property. 
Surely not. That question cannot arise ; he can- 
not hold the property there ; he does not own 
the man ; he voluntarily goes into a jurisdiction 
where there is no law to establish Slavery, and 
when he goes there the shackles of the slave fall 

11'. not by virtue of the Constitution of the Uni- 
ti I States abolishing Slavery everywhere, but by 
the universal law of mankind, that this thing of 
Slavery is so odious that it can only be sus- 
tained by positive law. 

Mr. YULEE. As I wish to understand the 
i or perfectly as we proceed, I will ask him 
this question : When he spoke of the existence 
of Slavery in Tennessee by virtue of the local 
law, did he mean the local law of the Territory, 
or the local law as established and recognised 
by Congress by virtue of the compact with North 
Carolina ? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I mean the local law exist- 
ing in that Territory when it was ceded, and 
which Congress, in accepting, agreed not to in- 
terfere with. 

The local law in Tennessee authorizing Sla- 
very was not a law to which Congress gave ex- 
istence ; it was a law in existence before Con- 
gress had any jurisdiction over the Territory. 
The Constitution did not intervene by its terms 
to exclude Slavery, there being a local law in 
existence, not made by Congress, authorizing it. 
Congress had nothing to do with the making of 
that local law. It wa3 there; men had a right 
to their slaves as property in the Territory telore 



19, 



it belonged to the United States at all. Now, 
he wants to know whether Congress can confis- 
cate that property. No — not it it is property; 
but if it was in a Territory where there had been 
no law establishing Slavery, and if, as he sup- 
poses, people from the Southern States exclu- 
sively go into such a Territory with their slaves, 
they do not hold them by virtue of any law when 
they get there, and it is no confiscation of prop- 
erty so to de-dare. They have no property in 
slaves in such a case. 

Mr. YULEE. Suppose they make a law. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. They cannot. That is the 
very thing the Republican party say they cannot 
do while in a Territorial condition. They have 
no right to do it. The creed of the Republican 
party, as I understand it, is, that you cannot ex- 
tend Slavery, under the Federal Government, 
into the Territories of the United States. There 
may be Slavery in a country which does not be- 
long to the United States; the United States 
may acquire that country, and may not abolish 
Slavery, because the right to hold slaves existed 
when the country was acquired ; but it does not 
follow, that if the country was free when we ac- 
quired it, men could afterwards have property in 
slaves in it; and that is the distinction. 

The Senator wants to 'know whether it is a 
part of the Republican creed to keep out of the 
Union a State tolerating Slavery, which applies 
for admission. Read the creed ; is there any 
such word in it? Is there anything that looks 
like it? Why not ask me if it is a part of the 
Republican creed to keep out of the Union a 
State applying for admission into the Union, the 
Constitution of which provides that her people 
shall elect her own Governor? We have never 
said so. What right have you to assume any 
such thing? It is no part of our creed, as laid 
down in our platform, to refuse a State admis- 
sion into this Union because she may or may not 
have Slavery. Look into it; see if you can find 
any such thing. Why, then, propound a ques- 
tion founded upon a hypothesis which has no 
foundation in the creed of the party? 

If the Senator wants my individual opinion, 
he can have that. I have no concealments. I 
stated it here at the first session of Congress 1 
served. I stated that it was not, with me, a 
fundamental principle that a State should not 
come into this Union as a slave State. I would 
regret the application of a State of that charac- 
ter ; but I have adopted it as no part of my po- 
litical faith, that under no possible circum- 
stances shall a State be admitted into this 
Union that tolerates Slavery. The Republican 
party is not to be charged with having assumed 
the ground, that a State may not be admitted 
into the Union that has Slavery. The old Re- 
publican party, from which we learn our princi- 
ples, did not keep slave States out, although 
they provided against the extension of Slavery 
into all territories, when they were not prohib- 
ited from so doing by the terms of cession : and 
if we do that, we will never, I trust, be troubled 
with the application of a slave State for admis- 
sion. 

The Senator says that the Supreme Court has 
decided that slaves may be legally held in a Ter- 
ritory. I deny it. The Supreme Court has de- 



cided no such thing. The Supreme Court baa 
no power to lay down political doctrines in this 
country. It may decide a case that comes be- 
fore it, and by the decision of the Court in that 
case I am willing to abide. The Court did de- 
cide that Dred Scott had no right to bring a suit 
in the United States courts, and that is all it de- 
cided. That decision is final as to him in that, par- 
ticular case; but, when the judges of the Court 
travelled out of the record, and undertook to lay 
down political principles for this Government, they 
departed, in my judgment, from the line of their 
duty, and the expression of their opinions is en- 
titled to no more credit with me, upon political 
questions, than the expression of the opinion of the 
same number of gentlemen off the bench. Why, sir, 
there had been decisions involving the question 
of the right to govern the Territories before the 
present Chief Justice presided. Look back, sir, 
[Mr. Masox in the chair,] to the doctrine promul- 
gated by your own Marshall, the ablest lawyer 
that ever sat on that bench, a Southern man. 
In one of his opinions, which is the opinion of 
the whole and not of a divided Court, he says, 
that in legislating for the Territories, Congress 
possesses the combined powers of the Federal 
and a State Government. If so, and if a State 
Government may prohibit Slavery, then Con- 
gress, possessing in a Territory the powers of a 
State Government and of the Federal Govern- 
ment combined, may do the same thing ; and 
where is your reverence for the doctrines of the 
Supreme Court, when you attack that decision ? 
Sir, for sixty years that was the doctrine of the 
country, acquiesced in by all parties. Why did 
you assail it, and open up this exciting ques- 
tion ? I deny that any such decision has been 
made as that Slavery exists in 'a Territory, or 
that the owner of a slave has a right to take him 
to a Territory, and hold him there as a slave. 

I believe, sir, that I have answered — I have 
certainly endeavored to do so — the questions 
which the Senator from Florida propounded to me. 

Mr. YULEE. Is the Senator proposing to leave 
the subject? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir; I propose to leave 
that point. 

Mr; YULEE. I am very sorry to trouble the 
Senator. But suppose the inhabitants of a Ter- 
ritory chose to recognise Slavery, and to legis- 
late with reference to the protection of that 
property ; and, without undertaking to discuss 
with him whether the courts have already de- 
clared that the right of property in a slave is not 
changed by migration to a Territory, suppose a 
local law of the Territory authorizes it, and sup- 
pose the courts x>f the Territory and the courts 
of the United States sustain the legality of it, 
will then the party to which the gentleman be- 
longs feel themselves bound to legislate for the 
destruction of the right asserted of property in 
slaves within that Territory? I am not speaking 
of territory in which there was any previous ex- 
istence of Slavery, * * * but a Territory in 
which the inhabitants choose to recognise Sla- 
very and to legislate for it, and in which the 
courts sustain it; would it be incumbent upon 
the gentleman's party under this platform to 
legislate to exclude it ? That is what 1 want to 
know. 



13 



Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, in my judg- 
ment, t'jcy should exclude it, as was done in the 
of Indiana and Illinois, when Territories, 
whose inhabitants were refused permission 
t i introduce Slavery when they asked it of Con- 

[f the Supreme Court of the United States 
should make a decision so utterly variant from 
t e repeated decisions of the courts in the South- 
ern Mates, and of the former decisions of the 
Supreme Court itself, as to say that one person 
t to hold another as a slave in a Ter- 
ritory by virtue of any action of the inhabitants 
ot a Territory, in defiance of Congress, I would 
in the decision of the court as to the 
particular case. \t' A sued for his freedom, and 
the court, decided that he was not entitled to it, 
I would not revolutionize the Government upon 
that ; but it would be a decision in that case, and 
in*that case only, and I would contest it on the 
morrow in the next. I would contest it day by 
day, until the court was reformed, and another 
its head, who should administer 
our fathers made it. 
Mr. YULEE. I do not ask the Senator's opin- 
ion. I ask him to expound the platform. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. 1 have expounded it. It§> 
anysuch right. Your hypothetical case will 
never arise. We deny that a court will aver 
make sm h a decision; and if it should, we will 
! means, to the ballot- 
re will appeal from the ex- 
.:! rights by men dressed in 
.owns to the great b idyofthe people, who make 
too. 
Mr. iTULEE. You would legislate to exclude 

Mr. TRUMBWLL. We would legislate to ex- 
clude it ; aud • d ol :- •' " would no 
inore Slavery in a Territory, except as 
t i the individual case, than has your decisi 
to Dred Fed- 
eral ied the fact thai i 
com il of a Ter- 
ritoi ■_•, . ion which scarcely a justice oi 
ii pes \' ' '■ State of Illinois would I 

, if an individual had come be- 
me of our justices with a claim exceeding 
the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, and the 
justice had examined it, and had seen that he 
ction, and then had gone on and 
d the case, and said how he would 
have i eci l( d it be had had jurisdiction, I think 
the •.. ! nunity would have laughed at 

folly. That is exactly what the Supreme 
C 'iitt of the United St ites has done in the Dred 
The idea that the Supreme Court 
of the United Stati 3 can establish political prin- 
ciples in this country is a new article in the creed 
ot the Democratic party. It was not the former 
doctrine of the present Chief Magistrate of the 
try. It was not the doctrine of Thomas 
Jefferson. lie regarded the Supreme Court as a 
set of sappers and miners, digging under the 
Constitution, who might in process of time sub- 
vert and destroy it. 

Mr. YULEE. Now, then, I would turn the 
Senator's attention to another question. I asked 
whether, under the first clause of this platform, 
the Senator construed Slavery to be legally exist- 



ing, or otherwise, in the District of Columbia, 
and in the forts and arsenals, and f)ther places 
in which the exclusive jurisdiction of the United 
States prevailed by the Constitution. These are 
the words 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I will answer the question 
without troubling the Senator to read the plat- 
form. I conceive that in the District of Colum- 
bia the Constitution of the United States has 
not, ex vi tcrmvii, abolished Slavery, because it 
existed here, by virtue of local law, when the 
United States obtained jurisdiction over the 
District. 

Now, sir, I think I have answered these gen- 
tlemen so that they cannot at any rate misap- 
prehend my views, and I have done it without 
concealment or holding back at all- and, as I 
said, if I have been the means of disabusing the 
mind of a single Senator, or of a single person 
in the South who may ever take occasion to 
look over the desultory remarks I have made, I 
shall rejoice at it. 

Having endeavored to show what the Repub- 
lican platform is, having given my understand- 
ing of it, 1 wish to ask Southern Senators why 
is there such a persistence in choosing to mis- 
understand us ? I do not charge that upon any 
particular Senator; but why is it that in the 
Southern States of this Union we are called 
Abolitionists. Would Senators induce their 
constituents to think more harshly of us than we 
ought to be thought of? What is to be gained 
by it? Is the South to gain anything by-ma- 
king its inhabitants believe, and inducing, if you 
please, the slaves to believe, that the great Re- 
publican party is ready to put knives and pis'.ols 
into the hands of the slaves, to murder their 
masters? What will you have accomplished 
when you shall have induced such a belief 
among the white people of the South, or among 
the slaves of the .South ? Will yon be more se- 
' Will there be any less likelihood of an 
insurrection, when you have circulated through- 
out the whole slave population the idea that the 
: mass of the people of the North are ready 
to arm tbera to slaughter their masters? Wbj 
not, then, 1 ask, treat us tts brethren? Treat us 
fairiy , take our platform as it is. When we say 
that all m9U are created equal, we do not mean 
that every man in organized society has the 
same rights. We do not tolerate that in Illinois. 
I know that there is a distinction between these 
two races, because the Almighty himself has 
marked it upon their very faces ; and, in my 
judgment, man cannot, by legislation or other- 
wise, produce a perfect equality between these 
races, so that they will live happily together. 

I have always been a Democrat ; and yet, now 
I am denounced as a Black Republican, as au 
Abolitionist ; for some of the Southern Govern- 
ors, I believe, choose to call us all Abolitionists. 
I have changed no sentiment on the subject of 
Slavery since the time when I acted with the old 
Democratic party. I am no more averse to it 
now than I was then. I have lived amidst it, 
and would be as far as any Senator from interfer- 
ing with this domestic relation where it exists in 
the States. 

I inquired what gentlemen meant by talking 
about an inequality of rights between the North 



14 



and the South ; and about aggressions of the 
North upon 'the South ; and when and where 
they were made. In reply, the Senator from 
South Carolina, instead of taking our platform 
as the exponent of our principles, adverted to 
what a single individual of the Republican party 
bad said. Now, sir, does it eornpoitf with the 
candor and the fairness of that distinguished 
Senator, who is, I believe, ordinarily, a. very can- 
did and fair gentleman, to attribute to a great 
partj r in the country, which has declared its 
principles in Convention assembled, what any 
one individual member of the party may say are 
his own opinions ? 

The Republican party, has declared no such 
principles as the Senator attributes to it. Would 
he mislead his people? Would he deceive him- 
self? 

Mr. CHESNUT. Mr. President 

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. Mason.) 
Does the Senator vield the floor? 
Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 
Mr. CHESNUT. The Senator has been pleased 
to comment on a portion of the remarks which I 
made yesterday, as not presenting a candid view 
of the subject, as if I did not speak in candor. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not mean to impute a 
want of candor, in any offensive sense, to the 
Senator ; but I think he has not fairly stated our 
principles. 

Mr. CHESNUT. Mr. President, I merely rose 
to state, in response to what the Senator asked 
of rue, whether I would take the opinion of a 
party from an individual, that ordinarily I would 
not; but when I find the party acting upon such 
principles generally ; when I find him who is ac- 
knowledged as the distinguished leader of that 
party, and so admitted, I believe, everywhere, 
and I suppose among themselves, uttering his 
well-considered and elaboiate opinions ; opinions 
which have been promulgated, and which have 
had their effect upon the country ; opinions which 
have never before been denied by the party ; 
which have never before been questioned, so far 
as I am aware ; which have never been respond- 
ed to by the gentlemeu who belong to that par- 
ty, as not being the opinions of their party, I felt 
at liberty, and I think I was authorized in feel- 
ing myself at liberty, to hold them as the opin- 
ions, the we'1-considered opinions, of the leader 
of this great party in the North. That is the 
reason why I chose, upon the discursive debate 
of yesterday, having that speech before me, to 
predicate my remarks of the purposes and prin- 
ciples' of that party upon the speech of that dis- 
tinguished leader. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I wish to 
say that I acknowledge, and, so far as I know, 
the Republican party acknowledges, no nun as 
its leader. However high my respect for the dis- 
tinguished Senator from New York, not now with 
us, I do not acknowledge him as the leader of 
the Republican party-; nor do I hold myself re- 
sponsible for the opinions he may express. We 
acknowledge no leaders. Whether the views 
enunciated by the Senator from New York are 
correct or not correct, is not the question ; if they 
differ from the creed of the Republican party as 
announced in its authoritative Convention, then 
they are not the creed of the party. 



Mr. CHESNUT. May I ask the Senator one 
question ? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. Certainly. 

Mr. CHESNUT. Does he repudiate those views 
of the Senator from New York? 

Mr. TRUMBULL. I repudiate the construction 
that you have put upon those views. And now 
I wish to ask the Senator from South Carolina, 
who read from that speech, which I have here 
before me, if it comported exactly with his sense 
of fair dealing and propriety as a Senate* of the 
United States, speaking in his place here for the 
information of the Senate and the country, and 
his own constituents in the South, to attribute 
to him such sentiments as these : " We (of the 
North) will subjugate you ; give us the reins of 
power, and we will place you at our feet? " 

Mr. CHESNUT. I quoted no such language as 
having been used by the Senate* from New 
York. I quoted from the speech of the Senator 
from New York, in which he expressly stated, as 
the result of this " irrepressible conflict," that 
the wheat-fields and rye-fields of New York and 
Massachusetts would ultimately be tilled by slave 
labor, or that the sugar plantations of Louisiana 
a.nA the rice-fields and cotton-fields of South 
CaTolina must b3 tilled by free labor. That was 
the language of the Senator from New York. 

Mr. TRUMBULL, I will ask the Senator, then, 
if it comports with his sense of fair dealing to a 
Senator from one of these United States, to quote 
that portion of the speech, and leave out this : 

"On tlv other Land, while I do confidently believe and 
hope that my country will yet become a land ot universal 
hi, 1 do not expect that it will be made so otherwise 
than through the action of the several States co-operating 
with the federal Government, and all acting in strict con- 
formity with their respective Constitutions." 

Mr. CHESNUT. True, Mr. President, that part 
of the speech is there. * * * I quoted, from 
another speech, a portion which I thought bore 
strongly udou the recent occurrences ; but from 
the speech from which the gentleman now quotes, 
I made a quotation expressly to show what was 
the purpose of the gentlemen, and what they had 
in view. I do not care by what means they seek 
to bring it about. They may take one means or 
another, but they have the end in view ; and it 
is that which we resist, and which we will resist. 

Mr. TRUMBULL. This is the speech where the 
term " irrepressible conflict " occurs ; and if the 
Senator is satisfied to go before the country in 
the attitude of having quoted one portion of the 
speech, and given to it a meaning at variance 
with another portion which he has left out, 
wherein it is stated in express terms, by the Sen- 
ator from New York, that he has no expectation 
that this country will all become free, except 
through the action of the States in a constitu- 
tional way, it is his privilege to do so. I draw 
his attention to it in fairness and in candor, as 
I have conducted this whole discussion on my 
part; and it seemed to me that it was. at least, 
due to the Senator who was not here, that his 
own explanation of the language which he had 
used should go along with what hud been quo- 
ted ; particularly as the Senator from South 
Carolina drew inferences which led him to use 
language wherein he spoke of subjugating the 
South, and placing them under the feet of the 
North, as if that were a legitimate deduction 



15 



from the re-marks vrhich he quoted, though the 
Senator who made these remarks had himself 
i oca sion, in the same speech, to guard 
against such an interpretation. 

Mr. CHESNUT. One word, by the permission 
of the Senator. I think, if the Senator will read 
that speech again, he will discover that, no mat- 
ter what i have been mentioned spe- 
cifically, the speaker indicated to his audience, 
to the people of the North, that it. is in their 
power; that this conflict is to be carried on; 
through them and by their power they can 
pi id fills result. * * * I consider that I 
hare done no injustice. I am willing to go be- 
fore the country and before the world upon the 
•ion of fairness and justice to the views of 
fork. * * "•■ 
Mr. TRUMBULL. I am 3orry that the Senator 
from Sou' '. who usualiy speaks with 
so much candor, should not be willing that the 
qualifying remarks made by the S-: 

mra go out with those which he 
ad especially wi. 
ation upon them difff rent from 
of their author. Uut, sir, if he is sati 
it shall go before country as he has si 
it, that is a matter of taste and propriety with 
him. 

One word i i reply to the Senator fro; i 
I q i 
sa\ 3, if i overeign ] , and can 

not e 

I shall not i 

ion in turn. 

it of a 

. - 

[iflh prohibit murder ; ran 

it leg ppose by a law ol 

! we d > prevent murder in the 
Indian i 

' ler the ( institu- 

tion o could sanc- 

tion i.. i 

my !■ : i , ompare 

Slav ■ d that Sla- 

■ .til 'l pat these as 
illu.- it does not necessarily 
follow that Congress can 
cause it can prohibit i;. Bui i will m 
' 

^Sir, the sentiments of the Senator fro 
York, which have been so much commi 
upon, are not in w to this country. He is not the 
author i 'ration of this principle, thai 

there i tween righi 

f.v en goi d and evil; nor is he the I. 

has looked forw .tie when all the 

■ <ur read, to the Si ti- 
nt. ..h.i; 

this vert dngton, in a 

tcr written to I said : 

'■:,'. 1 .- i ■ 

a most 

•a any 
a burden. 

which pro- 

n i. ir N'orth- 

irc It 

j 

in slave labor. 

T1 w prova rginia is against the spread of 



Slavery into the new Territories, and I trust we shall have a 
Confederacy of free States." 

What more than that is the declaration of the 
Senator from New York? Were these doctrines 
considered heretical in 1798 ? Did General 
V ashington promulgate a principle which was 
to degrade the South, reduce it to subjection, 
trample its rights under foot? This principle 
then met the approbation of the people of the 
South: the prevailing sentiment of Virginia was 
against the spread of Slavery into new Territo- 
ries, and such is the prevailing sentiment of the 
people of Illinois. Hear further, sir, what the 
founder of the old Republican party said upon 
this subject: 

" With the morals of the people, the r in lus ry also is de- 

. in a warm climate, no man will labor for Inm- 

another labor fur bun. This is so true, 

tors of slavi s, a very small proportion 

to ibor. And can the liberty of a na- 

u we have removed their only 

a in then leople that these 

1 : i re noi . ted 

:. 1 tremble for my country 
st; Hut His j t sieep 

- nt mbers, natun , and natural 
wheel of fortune, an ex- 
cvents : that it may 
i natural influen . m ghty 

I i u Hi us .ii such a con- 

test." 

That was the language of Thomas Jefferson, 
'he gi le of human liberty in this coun- 

try. Again: Thomas Jefferson, in 1821, referring 
number of bills which had been. introduced 
into the Legislature of Virginia, with regard to 
anticipation of slaves, used this language: 

;to! the 

ling them, v, I i ,.i.,ti<.u of a 

. a. Ii wis thought 

b ... inly by 

■ ill should be brought on. 

.. however, ■■■. i igrecd on; 

ii a ■ l day, 

latapri per agi . But il w ... at tho 

qi t \ et bear the proposition, nor will it 

..i this day. Yi ; the day is not distant when it 

worse will follow. Nothing is 

tten in the book of fate, than that these 

■ was the Senator from South Carolina 

2 1 . whi n Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that 

nothing was more certainly written in the book 

.-» that these people were to be free. 

I further : 

■■ X. cerl till that the two i ly free, 

Government. Nature, habit, opin- 

ii tion I tween them. 

ir to direct the process oi emancipation 

ac lably, and i .... that 

then plat q be, pari 

■ white laborers. If, on the contrary, 

ii is i . ill on, human nal i r at the 

''■ ■ i ild in vain loi I n i mple in 

tation or deletion o the Moors. This pre- 

L Of i ....-.-. 

"I cons b passed or 1 1 ported, as 

bj which every fibre would be eradicated 

. .. . and a foundation laid tor a 

i ly rep 

Where, then, was the feeling which is now 
exhibited, that the South ought to dissolve the 
Union on account of the utterance of such senti- 
ments, and especially when the Senator from 
New York has taken the pains to guard against 
the inference that he was for using any other than 
constitutional and legal means in co-operation 
with the States it: getting rid eventually, in the 
far distant future, of this thing of Slavery. It 
will be seen that the idea is not new nor pecu- 



1G 



liar to the Senator from New York. It had its 
origin in Virginia years ago; and I trust that 
an idea foreshadowed by Mr. Jefferson will 
hereafter .become, although it is not now, part 
of the creed of the Republican party— I mean the 
idea of the deportation of the free negro popula- 
tion from this country. I trust the Republican 
party will make it part of its creed, that this 
Government should procure some region of coun- 
try, not far distant, to which our free negro pop- 
ulation may be taken. I fear the consequences, 
■which Jefferson so eloquently prophesied, unless 
that is done. The negro population is increas- 
ing at a rapid rate. I agree with the sentiment 
of Mr. Jefferson, that two races which are marked 
by distinctive features cannot live peaceably to- 
gether without one domineering over the other, 
especially when they differ in color. The free 
negro population of this country is a great evil 
now. 1 believe it to be the interest of the black 
populati m that they should go to some country 
where they may develop their powers, and where 
there sh I be no superior race to domineer over 
them, and that it is the duty of this Government 
to use its means for the purpose of freeing our 
country of that portion of this population that is 
willing to go. I think, in that way. this thing 
of Slavery may eventually be got rid of. Thou- 
sands of masters would be willing to free their 
slaves, if there was any provision for them when 
freed; but in most of the States where Slavery 
exists, laws' have been passed prohibiting eman- 
cipation except on condition that the emancipa- 
te*! slave shall leave the jurisdiction of the State. 
"Where are they to go '( The North does not 
want a free uegro population ; the South will 
not have them. The consequence is, that eman- 
cipation has nearly ceased. U\ however, a coun- 
try contiguous were provided, where the tree 
negro population of the United States who were 
willing might go — and 1 think they would soon ail 
be will;::;; to leave, if they couid go under the 
fostering care of this Government until they be- 
came sufficiently numerous to protect themselves 
and establish a Government of their own — we 
might establish a system which, in process of 
time, not in your day, sir, nor in mine, nor per- 
haps ii: the day of the coming generation, but in 
future time, would relieve us of the black pop- 
ulation, and prevent consequences which we 
shudder to contemplate. I cannot so well ex- 
press my views on this point as by qu ■■■: ■ 
a spee I ; distinguished Senator from 

Kentucky, now no more, before the American 
Colonization Society. He said : 

" We are reproached with doing mischief by the agitation 
of this question . The Society goes into no household 
tiirb it:- d< mestic tranquillity ; a addresses itsell to no slaves, 
to weaken their obligations of obedience; it seeks to affect 



I no man's property. It neither has the power nor the will 
I to affect the property of any one contrary to his consent. 
The execution of its scheme would augment, instead of di- 
! minishing, the v<ilue of the property left behind. Tin- So- 
ciety, composed of freemen, concerns itself only with the 
free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for. 
It is not tns Society which lias produced the great moral 
n volution which the ago exhibits. What would they, who 
thus reproach us, have done?" 

Now, see how his language fits the declarations 
of the Senator from South Carolina, who finds 
such fault with the idea of ultimate emancipa- 
tion : 

" If they would repress all tendencies towards liberty and 
ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put down 
the benevolent efforts of ties Society. They must go back 
to the era ol our liberty and independence, and muzzle the 
cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. They 
must revive the slave trade, with all its tram of atrocities." 

Ay, sir, revive the slave trade as we now see 
it being revived ! 

" They must suppress the workings of British philanthropy, 
seeking to ameliorate the condition of the unfortunate West 
Indian slaves. They must arrest the career of South Amer- 
ican deliverance from thraldom. Xhoy must Hot out ",^o 
v ; al ' "'■ ! - arc r.Bd-tis, and "• i tcsGh 

hi all, which Anierio.-, pros ail i to a benighted world, point- 
ing the way to their rights, their liberties, and their happi- 
ness. And when they have achieved all these purposes. 
work will be yet incomplete. They meat penetrate 
the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the 
toyo oi liberty. Then, and not till then, when universal 
darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, 
and repress all sympathies and all humane and benevolent 
efforts among freemen in behalf of the unhappy portion of 
our race who are doomed to bondage." 

That, sir, was the language of Henry Clay in 
regard to the colonization of the free blacks in 
Attica. It seems to be impracticable to trans- 
port this great population to Africa. Let us 
obtain a country nearer home ; and to show the 
sympathy of the North for the South, I think I 
may say — I know 1 may say for the people wlrnu 
1 represent — we will contribute liberally of our 
means to relieve the country of the free negro 
population, and of all slaves who may be volun- 
tarily emancipated, by planting them in some 
contiguous country by themselves. I hope that 
may become the policy of the Republican party. 
! hope that we shall join hands with the South ; 
that, instead of reproaching each other, instead 
of saying anything which would create a mis- 
understanding between different sections of the 
Union, we may come together as our fathers did 
of old in their struggle, for independence, and, 
side by side as brothers, adopt a policy which, ii 
i it shall net eventually deliver the ccuntrj 

: iver seriously threatened 
its peace, shall at least prevent its spread and 
j increase, and at the same time furnish the means 
j of relieving the country of the evils of a largf 
i free negro population. By such a course we may 
i lay the foundation for continued and permanent 
■ prosperity. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

1859. 




mWmmWm 




-Mm 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

mil mi nun 




008 946 1 78 9 



